37. Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Six
Ursula
I woke bright and early this morning to ensure I would have more than enough time to prepare myself to meet Lysander’s parents.
I consulted my small, leatherbound notebook from the bubbles; the cluster of pages from early in my dates with Lysander—where I had taken meticulous notes on his favorite books, mozart compositions, Dutch Masters paintings—the names of the schools he attended, alongside the few things he absolutely will not eat (tripe, seeded grapes, and raw octopus), and of course—the names of his parents as well as all of his pets ages five through fifteen.
Preston and Harper Ewing. I can only hope that they don’t despise me outright.
Even though it’s a warm,summer day in the city of LA, I struggle into a pair of sheer olive-nude stockings in favor of going legs-bare beneath my incredibly-conservative baby pink Boucle skirt suit.
I feel like some kind of daft real estate agent or possibly the headmistress of a finishing school for rich, preppy girls—the bubblegum pink hem of the skirt brushing my knees, my hair in pin curls that bounce around my ears—giving my pearl necklace plenty of room to breathe over the high-neck of the knit silk tank top beneath my cropped, collarless jacket.
“Woah.” Ash blinks as he catches sight of me fixing my lipstick in one of the many mirrors lining the hallway from the nesting wing to the grand salon. “I don’t know whether I should ask for a showing of the Barbie dream house or for you to buckle me into the pink rhinestoned St. Andrew’s cross that’s inevitably stowed somewhere on your property in that getup.” He grins at me, careful not to muss my candy pink lipstick as he bends to peck me on the lips.
“You look very respectable, Mr. KR3OSOTE.” I smooth my hands over the shoulders of his seersucker jacket, it’s puckered grey and white stripes, crisp against his pale yellow linen button down; Ash’s usually messy mop of lavender blonde swept back into a neat coif—a barely perceptible clear silicone retainer in place of his usual wardrobe of glittering piercings.
“What about us, do we pass?” Ronan calls genially, he and Mavren appearing in their own meet the parents finery.
“You all look so classy.” I turn to fully face the pair; Mavren, in a pair of well tailored gray slacks—a knit silk polo in a beautiful shade of persimmon tucked tidily behind a black braided belt—a vintage Bulova on his wrist, his locs tied back from his regal face, low on the nape of his neck. Beside him, Ronan fiddles with the white French cuffs on his robin’s egg blue shirt; a pair of cufflinks, johnny jump ups set in clear resin, wink at his wrists, whiskey brown leather suspenders framing his broad chest.
“I feel like all of you have just leaned into your trademark styles and I’m cosplaying as someone his parents might tolerate rather than myself,” I laugh self consciously, clicking on my kitten heels to bestow kisses upon Mavren and Ronan.
“I don’t know, I think you look pretty in pink—Princess.” Teddy purrs as he appears from the far end of the hall. A pair of navy slacks, an expensive white T-shirt; the sleeves straining over his sculpted shoulders—a tan silk knit sweater draped across his trapezius, the arms crossed beneath his neck. I swallow down a laugh, because even though he looks like he’s doing his best impression of the captain of a tennis team at a stuffy school for rich boys, he also looks just as hot as he usually does…if not somehow more so because it feels almost taboo to see reformed-fuckboy-Teddy so clean cut looking.
“Don’t worry, this won’t take too long. I’m sure all of us can help get you out of that suit once we’re done with this little obligation,” Lysander calls after Teddy, rounding the corner from the grand salon to complete our sextet.
I can’t help but suck a breath through my teeth. Though I won’t say it out loud, Lysander looks terrible. His usually luminous, silky skin looks wan and sallow—smears of dark purple sleeplessness circled beneath his hollow-looking brown eyes.
“Sandy,” Teddy wavers, his face contorted with worry, his hand already reaching for Lysander.
Lysander turns his head, catches his reflection in one of the many gilt framed mirrors that line the hallway—a hand raising instinctively to his face.
“Oh jeez, I really look almost as shitty as I feel,” he groans, running a hand back through his hair—his pale pink shirt collar undone, one of it’s long tails untucked and rumpled as it hangs over the narrow waist of his pleated stone colored chinos.
“Hey man, if you’re not up to this—why don’t we get you back to bed? I can make some chicken soup for you or something. We can call your parents and tell them you’re in rough shape,” Mavren offers, already halfway down the hall on his way to the kitchen, but Lysander waves him off.
“No, no—I can’t put this off. I’m not sick. I just didn’t get any sleep last night because my brain simply refused to turn off,” he explains woefully, dragging a hand down his face.
“Are you sure? None of us wants you to push yourself. If your parents try to give you shit about it—I’ll take the heat,” I offer myself up for sacrifice, moving slowly into Lysander’s bubble of personal space to smooth a lock of chocolate curls out of his face.
He nods gravely, leaning in to kiss my mouth before he calls to Leo and Ascher, “Would you have Emily bring the car around?”
“Yes, of course sir.” Leo and Ascher, seeming to appear from thin air—a large bouquet of stargazer lilies, pungent and cloyingly sweet in Ascher’s arms.
“And would you tell Millicent to prepare a light tea service for when we return? We won’t be long, and supper with the Wong family isn’t until quite a bit later.”
I can’t help but shuffle uneasily as Lysander makes his requests. I’ve never seen butlers or maids in real life before—only in movies. Something about the quality of Lysander and the house staff’s interactions is different in a way I can’t quite place.
“Of course,” Leo and Ascher reply in unison, bowing crisply at the waist before disappearing into the grand salon and the rooms beyond.
“Tea? Aren’t we having lunch with your parents?” Teddy stands somewhat awkwardly—his hands in his pockets to keep them from fidgeting with nerves.
“Shall we?” Lysander offers me his arm, handily avoiding Teddy’s question in favor of sweeping me out the front door and toward Emily—her black leather gloved hand poised on the door handle of the limo, ready to sprint into action.
On the fringe of my peripheral vision, I watch the other boys exchange suspicious glances.
Once we’re all seated in the limo, the mood is distinctly more stuffy and uncomfortable than our ride from the airport to Redthorn the day before.
I’m curious to see where we’re off to. I’d have never guessed that Redthorn could have been nestled right here in LA, despite my other run-ins with the town’s rich and famous over the years.
Preston and Harper Ewing must have some pretty serious digs. If we’re about to be walking directly into the lion’s den, we might as well appreciate the trappings of their wealth, the rich furnishings of our final resting place while we can, right?
I’m so deep in thought that I hadn’t even noticed our quick turns from street to street, not even five miles from Redthorn’s front door before the limo takes a sharp turn into a shaded cemetery, the limo rolls slowly along one of the narrow one way access roads until we arrive at a gleaming white stone mausoleum, the name ‘Ewing’ carved into its marble face above a line of ionic columns.
The limo comes to a stop and the engine stills. My mind continues spinning, not yet understanding the scene before me.
Lysander is the first one out of the limo, his hand outstretched to me to help me out of the limo after him.
As soon as Teddy is out of the back, Lysander passes me off to him, placing the bouquet of lilies in my arm; their pink and white spattered petals, and sweet scent feeling stiflingly funereal in this new context.
Lysander marches dutifully to the bright red lacquered wooden doors to the crypt—snatching a small broom from somewhere unseen behind one of the columns; sweeping away leaves and fallen jacaranda blossoms from the white stone steps before he replaces the broom—calling us forth to follow him inside as he swings the crimson portals wide.
“Ursula, Teddy, Mavren, Ronan, Ash—,” he sucks in a pained breath, the whine of a sob at the frayed edges of Lysander’s voice. “Meet Mom and Dad—Harper and Preston Ewing,” he manages to bite out, sweeping a hand toward a pair of framed black and white photographs affixed to a large stone outcropping not unlike a capped shelf just inside the vestibule.
Beneath the distant, not-quite-smiling portraits of the late Mr. And Mrs. Ewing, a brass vase protrudes from the stone, a withered bundle of white roses and crumbled baby’s breath still moldering inside.
“Mom, Dad—meet Pack Gold,” he sobs a cold laugh, pulling the dead flowers from the brass fitting and tossing them out the front door of the crypt.
“Hold on just a second…” Mavren starts slowly—a hand laid flat over his own solar plexus.
Ash’s head swivels wildly—looking from Mavren, to Lysander, to me—and back again; his mouth moving without any sound coming out.
“But—I thought—you never said…” Teddy stammers.
Lysander turns to me, takes the bouquet of lilies from my arms and places them into the vase—arranging them tenderly as tears fall from his eyes.
“Why didn’t you tell us?” I ask quietly, eddying in behind Lysander through the cold stream of his grief.
His shoulders sag as my hands come to rest on his waist, his sobs coming in little jerking bursts.
“The inheritance,” Ronan sighs with pained understanding. “You didn’t want to go into the show having to completely bullshit who you were…but you wanted to make sure you put some potential distance between you and all that money when it came to the optics.”
“My father hated me, he would have denied me every penny if he’d had his way.” Lysander struggles to breath against his hysterical tears. “My mother, though she had wanted me to be an omega like her, still loved me. She didn’t want to punish me for something I wasn’t—even if she was disappointed.”
I can’t help it—the sight of Lysander so deeply wounded brings tears from my own eyes—my hands combing gently back through his hair—his eyes still chained to the portraits of his late parents, even though they overflowed with tears.
“He threatened to remove me from his will—to make sure I inherited nothing, not a single penny. My mother begged him to wait—to see what happened when I finished school…” Lysander’s lip quivers and we all hold our collective breath—knowing what will come next.
“They were on the private jet, a routine jaunt to Paris for my mother’s sixty-fifth…They never came home.” He dissolves, completely undone.
Lysander sobs openly, his head bowed—the ragged cries ripping from him in tattered peals as I fold him against me—my arms wrapping tightly around his chest—his back rounded against my ribcage—his hands reaching back into my hair as he keens and wails.
“It’s ok darling, it’s all going to be alright,” I soothe Lysander, my lips pressing just below the lobe of his ear.
“C’mon Sandy baby,” Teddy croons—shifting in front of Lysander, taking Lysander’s face in his hands. “Take a deep breath, bud—we’ve got you,” he reassures Lysander tenderly.
“You’re in good company,” Mavren sniffles, tears flowing from his eyes as he draws near—his arms reaching out to wreath our shoulders—Lysander’s and mine. “I didn’t have the same type of trouble with my old man, but I lost him in my early twnety’s. He never got a chance to see me open my own restaurant, to make a name for myself—to meet all of you, my dream pack.” His warm, sonorous voice tapers off into muffled sobs as he lays his head atop Lysander’s—his full lips pressed to the boundary land of Lysander’s porcelain forehead and his soft brown curls.
Ash doesn’t offer any words of wisdom—just worms his way into the open space between Teddy and Mavren, purring softly to calm us—his Juniper Palo-Santo scent calling to Lysander’s own theta perfume; the lavender and blue chamomile rising as Mavren and Teddy begin echoing Ash’ low thrumming purr.
“It’s hard to lose someone,” Ronan speaks softly—his quartz pebble eyes still fixed on the stark monochrome portraits of the late Mr. And Mrs. Ewing. “Even harder when you lose someone who you spent your entire life trying to figure out how not to love them,” he sniffles, his voice tight with threatening tears.
Lysander stills then—his sobs quieting in earnest as he lifts his face to regard Ronan through the protective cage of our limbs, gathered around him in a group hug.
“My old man was a hateful sonofabitch,” Ronan’s tears begin to fall, spatters of dark blue wetting the front of his shirt. “Smacked me around ‘till I saw stars, or belted me until I couldn’t sit down at my desk at school the next day, so he had to keep me home,” he confesses, barely above a whisper. “Last time I ever saw him, he called me a ‘faggot’ and told me he had no son.”
A sob breaks free from Lysander and his hand shoots out—reaching for Ronan, calling him to us.
Ronan finds his way into the skein of arms—our limbs untangling and re-weaving into new patterns to welcome him in.
We stand like this—a sobbing, snotty mess until Lysander’s voice rises again—strong and true.
“They can’t hurt us anymore. For better or worse, all we have left is their memories,” he sniffles—our hold on one another loosening as we take a collective step back; face to face once more.
Teddy wipes the tears from his own eyes before bending to kiss away the tears on Lysander’s face, on my cheekbones. “We have plenty of memories to make of our own.”
All of us are so emotionally exhausted after our visit to the Ewing family crypt, we strip down out of our finery; opting to have tea on the patio in our bathing suits and loungewear; some of the boys pouring fine bourbon into their fancy vanilla-bean-scented cups of assam; Ronan, Mavren, and I still feeling guilty for disassembling a cigar worth twice the weight of ganja used to roll it into a quick and dirty blunt…but not so badly that we don’t smoke the sweet skunky thing down to a roach to soothe our frayed nerves.
Since dinner isn’t until much later, Lysander, Ronan, and I take advantage of the black-out curtains in the nesting room; the three of us collapsing into the plush nest to take a much needed nap while Mavren, Ash, and Teddy kill time.
When I wake—I wake alone. A momentary panic strikes me as I reach out my arms to sweep the empty bed around me in the near perfect darkness, finding nothing but the blankets already gone cold.
“Lysander?” I call, sitting up in the nest—the golden strip of light under the door, and the dusky pink glow of sunset bleeding from the rippling seam where the drawn curtains meet. I didn’t mean to sleep so late, why hasn’t anyone woken me.
“Ronan?” I shout louder this time.
I wait in silence, straining to see if I can hear the muffled sound of voices from another room.
Nothing.
As my eyes adjust to the dark, I push to my hands and knees and crawl out of the nest, fumbling my way toward the door with my arms outstretched. When I manage to get my hand on the doorknob, emerging into the bright hallway in my oversized t-shirt and boxer shorts I let out a startled yelp when I nearly crash headlong into a camera crew along with Millicent or “Millie” as Lysander sometimes calls her affectionately; a tall wisp of a woman with watery blue eyes and golden blond braids—her arms laden with thick white towels and a deep red velvet dressing gown.
“Oh, Miss!” She blinks with surprise. “What excellent timing. I was just coming in to wake you.”
“Where are the boys?” I blurt, my voice sounding more worried than I’d like.
“Mr. Ewing and the others had to attend to an urgent errand.” She smiles apologetically.
“Oh…did they say where they were going?” I press, my hands unsure of what to do.
“I’m sorry, Miss Goldblum-Laskaris. I’m afraid they didn’t say.” Millie bows her head slightly, her lips pursed contritely.
“Please—you can call me Ursula, Millie.” I wave the honorifics away. “Did they say when they’d be back? We have dinner with Teddy’s parents—god what time is it? Around eight? I think we were supposed to meet them at some restaurant for dinner.
“It’s quarter past six Miss—erm, Ursula,” she corrects herself quickly. “Mr. Ewing said that they should be home well before dinner, and to let you sleep as long as possible.” She opens her arms to more fully display the towels and dressing gown. “Mr. Ewing also suggested that you might like to have a bath in the omega suite before dinner.” She beams before adding conspiratorially under her breath “It is incredibly luxurious — with a little wink. “I would be happy to prepare the bath for you.” She sweeps her entire body to the side—at once opening my way down the hall and gesturing to the door to the bath—an inviting amber glow pouring from the frame.
I take the silk velvet dressing gown from Millie, it’s rich oxblood shimmering and buttery soft to the touch. I have to stop myself from rubbing it against my face.
“You know…I wouldn’t mind a bath,” I concede, allowing Millie to lead me.
Millie was not kidding. The baths in the omega suite are amongst the most incredible I’ve ever seen in my life. A massive basin carved from a single crag of creamy white Brazilian quartz stands in the center of the black and white tiled room; polished brass fittings shaped like art-nouveau flowers, leaves, and vines blossoming from the tub and coordinating pedestal sink.
I sink into the hot water after Millie leaves me to my rest and relaxation, sweet almond oil beading atop the water.
Knock, knock, knock —a gentle rapping on the bathroom door.
“Who is it?” I call, sleepily from the steaming water.
“Just me, Sugar.” Ronan’s voice answers from the other side.
“Come in!” I sit upright in the bath—though the tub is so deep—the water is still up to my collarbones.
“Well hello, my bathing beauty.” Ronan flashes me a debonair smile, making his way toward me in the bath.
“Where did all of you boys wander off to? I passed out with you and Lysander and then poof—I wake up alone with Millie twisting my arm for me to take a bath in this incredible fucking crystal grotto. How could you?” I tease—my hands splashing down gently as I flail, a caricature of rage.
“We were working on a little something.” He smirks, his hands moving to the hem of his shirt.
“A little something?” I echo, giving a hyperbolic pout as he pulls the shirt over his head—revealing his bare chest—smattered with tawny freckles; his arms wreathed in all the brilliant colors of his floral tattoos.
“You know— a little somethin’-somethin’” Ronan makes a few smoochy faces, his hands moving to the draw strings of his baggy linen pants.
“Ah-ah-ah!” I lift my finger out of the water, wagging at him sternly. “You’re going to have to do better than that if you think I’m going to let you into my crystal grotto bath after y’all ditched me during a nap!”
“Your crystal grotto?” Ronan gasps, letting his pants drop—his teal boxer briefs giving his half-erection away.
“It’s called the omega suite bathroom—not the gamma suite bathroom,” I assert haughtily, a low groan escaping.
“Ok, maybe not so little—maybe a big something…but the boys and I aren’t ready to tell you yet.” His eyelids droop as he strokes his cock through the thin fabric of his boxers.
I feel my pulse pick up pace, a jittery rush of dopamine coursing through me as my nipples begin to harden, little points of fizzling sensation as I float in the warm water—pinned by Ronan’s hungry gaze.
The two of us are so taken by the moment that neither of us hears the soft sigh of hinges as the door to the bathroom swings open then softly shut.
“Oho!” Ash hoots as he gets a good look at us. “I was wondering where you’d gotten off to.” He nods to Ronan—a devilish grin cutting across the beautiful lines of Ash’s gaunt face. “Well, it doesn’t look like anyone’s got off yet—” Ash winks at his own joke—already busy with shucking his own clothing—not wanting to be left out. “But I’m happy to help fix that.” He beams, before his face momentarily disappears behind his lifted shirt as he strips it off. “Mavren’s already prepping at the restaurant—and Teddy and Lysander still have a few more stops to make before dinner,” he explains hurriedly—clearly eager to convey to me that the others are otherwise engaged. There’s no reason to delay for them.
Ronan frees his cock from his boxers, and I push up onto my knees—my breasts hanging over the edge of the quartz tub as I take him in my hand, guiding him into my mouth.
As my eyes slide closed, I can just see Ash, naked and white like a perfect marble statue, climbing into the bath. I can feel the water level bob—the current of warm water shifting as Ash moves in behind me.
Ronan reaches down, cupping my breasts with his worn hands—my lips around the head of his cock.
I feel his hip flexors fire under my fingertips, one hand gently gripping Ronan’s hip for support, the other wrapped tightly around the base of his cock as his knot begins to swell against my palm.
“I feel like I can understand how you went so long without going into heat,” Ash rumbles unexpectedly from behind—his hands coming to rest on my love handles as he kisses the nape of my neck.
A little pop echoes through the cavernous bathroom over the sound of sloshing water.
“Oh? And how’s that?” Ronan groans in protest as I free him from my mouth, my hand taking up the work—stroking him hard from knot to tip.
“You’re so fucking hot, so imaginative—so ready…most guys probably could barely handle you on suppressants, let alone in a heat.” Ash’s hands travel lower, each taking a generous handful of my ass and giving it a good squeeze. “I personally—can’t wait to make you cum over and over with my packmates,” he growls into my ear—his cock hard against the cleft of my ass, one of his hands reaching between my legs from behind—two fingers finding my dripping pussy; pink and trembling just above the water’s surface.
“Why wait till I’m in heat?” I pant, increasingly desperate. “You two can make me cum over and over right now ,” I whine, spreading my knees wider apart to allow Ash better access.
“You’re not ready for my knot yet, Sugar,” Ronan growls, his hips lurching forward as I take him back in my mouth—Ash using his slick fingers to run his cock head along my slit as he prepares to enter me.
“Plenty ready for me, though.” Ash hisses in a breath as he pushes inside me—my lips buzzing around Ronan’s cock as Ash’s girth stretches my aching tightness with a lush heat.
“Goddamn, Sugar,” Ronan moans, one of his hands weaving into my hair—his fingers closing gently around the mass of raven curls at the crown of my head; the tingling sensation running from my scalp, down my neck—twinging through my diamond-chip nipples, all the way to my throbbing clit.
Ash and I both moan as my cunt tightens around him, pulling him even deeper inside me as he pumps another deep, seeking stroke with his thick cock.
“You look so good sucking my cock, getting fucked by my packmate.” Ronan’s words run along my senses like alcohol on fire—my entire body crackling with the heightened sensation of being the focal point of both Ronan and Ash’s erotic attentions.
“I can’t wait to see how she takes your knot,” Ash pants, having to raise his voice slightly now over the wet slapping sounds his narrow hips make against my ass as he fucks me from behind.
My eyes roll back—my vision stuttering as Ash drives himself deeper and deeper inside me—Ronan’s turgid knot pressing at my lips—my jaws struggling to widen large enough to fit the swollen knob of flesh, though I desperately want to show him I can take his knot—even if he won’t put it deep in my pussy until I’m properly in heat.
“That’s right sugar, you take Ash’s cock—just like that.” Ronan’s breath is thready, and I can feel his balls lift slightly from my cupped palm—a sign that he’ll be cumming soon.
Ash steadies his pace at a higher speed—his hands reaching around to toy with my rock hard nipples as he pistons in and out of me—his own breath beginning to become labored.
“Fuck, I wanna put my knot inside you—I’m so fucking close.” Ronan trembles—his knees locked in hyperextension—his eyes fighting to stay open as he keeps deep eye contact with me; his cock hot and hard in my mouth.
Just watch, I think to myself—as I lurch forward—unhinging my jaw to the best of my ability; Ronan’s knot making a loud squelch as it suctions past my lips—rounded carefully over my teeth.
“Ursula—oh god!” he shouts, words failing Ronan as he descends into a chain of guttural screams—his hands clutching the back of my skull as he jerks uncontrollably—shooting ropes of cum down my throat.
“FUCK!” Ash spasms sharply—his deep, languid strokes shattering into tiny staccato shudders as he cums unexpectedly at the sight of Ronan’s knot locked into my open mouth—my throat working desperately to guzzle down Ronan’s cum, my nostrils flared with the effort of breathing through my nose.
I can tell from his expression that Ronan is panicked; unsure of what to do—his knot keeping him securely inside my mouth exactly as it would keep him and his seed sealed deep inside my womb.
It might be my first heat, but it’s not my first knot job. I think smugly to myself, my hands reaching between my legs to flick my pounding clitoris.
Ronan nearly doubles over me as I moan around his cock—his head dangerously close to impeding my uvula.
Ash, eager to make me cum and to post-orgasm-torture Ronan by proxy—spreads my legs wider apart, getting down on his hands and knees to bury his face in my pussy from behind.
“Goddamn it, I’m never going to get this knot to go down,” Ronan’s voice trembles as I moan around him again—Ash’s tongue helping to carry me closer and closer to the edge of my own orgasm.
He whimpers and whines as his sensitive cock is bombarded by the vibration of my stoppered moans.
Ronan almost screams when I finally cum, my eyes rolled back—my whole body shaking.
When he finally deflates enough for me to part his half-hard cock from my mouth—I sit back on my heels and say, “So what was that about me not being ready for your knot?” as innocently as I can manage with remnants of Ronan’s pearly load still dripping from the corner of my lips and Ash’s opalescent cum seeping from my pussy lips into the bath water.
“Remind me to issue you more challenges in the future,” Ronan sighs, exhausted—before offering me a hand and a plush white towel. “But right now, we have to get ready for dinner…and our alphas are going to be pissed when we show up to dinner smelling like fuckin’.” He beams, Ash mockingly pressing his palms together before adding a humorous ‘amen’—rising to help me out of the bath and into the waiting towel.